Some Interesting Food History Worth Sharing

In Harvey Levenstein's Paradox of Plenty, I'm now up to the Reagan years, and the really depressing thing is that so many seeds of the problems we're facing now were sewn by President Ronald Reagan and his era of greed.  Not that I'm not a capitalist, but Reagan--with his tax cuts for the wealthy and his insane unlimited spending on weapons--is an absolute turning point in our economic history, and not a good one.  Long-term planning and whatever ideas of corporate responsibility we might have ever had (and that never seems to have been much) was exploded by corporate raiders and the rise of the just-need-to-show-profits-for-the-next-quarter mentality.  As part of the "trickle-down" economic theory, the tax cuts were accompanied by drastic slashes to social programs, including welfare and food stamps, and even with his draconian cuts to who could qualify, by the time Reagan left office, 1 in 10 Americans could qualify for food stamps.   BUT, I have to admit, that with the welcoming of the racist southern Democrats who fled the Democratic party after President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights bills, Reagan probably had the votes of those he would send into poverty.  If it weren't so sad, that would be rather funny.

In the 1980s, the richest 1/5th of Americans experienced significant improvements in living standards, while the middle class held its own mainly by increasing the reliance on two incomes while the bottom 15% sank downward [from the New York Times, December 16, 1990]   Now, maybe it's just me, but if the middle class ONLY held its own by doubling the number of workers in the household, that is not progress.   Income levels drastically affect food (and social) history because social history really is about what we do with discretionary income, and when discretionary income dries up--as it does when income only rises for 5% of the population--that becomes a big factor in what people eat and do.  I have never been a fan of Reagan, and have read WAY too many economic theory and history books to find his "trickle down" economic theories as anything but sheer nonsense, so I wasn't surprised by much, but it is sad to see where we could have done things differently.  As before the Great Depression, once income stagnates or deteriorates for the majority of people there is no one left to be able to afford all the crap they normally buy, so companies aren't making the profits any longer (the ones that feed those $12 million salaries CEOs now get), and they lay off people and the problems compound, and then the people who aren't affected--those in the upper income levels--blame the poor for being poor.  These are all predictable circles that just keep happening over and over and over.  All you have to do is read the actual history--the factual stuff, not the Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin nonsense.    Food assistance programs have always been attacked by those who don't need them as encouraging "laziness," even when it was proven in 1979 that food programs had virtually eliminated the gross malnutrition problems that they had been created to address.

I guess our ability to look down on everyone not as well off as ourselves is overshadowed only by our inability to learn from our own history.

Back To Food History...

I haven't been writing about food research for a while, mostly because I'm up to the 1960s and 1970s in the 2 part Harvey Levenstein food history work, and it's complicated and sometimes downright weird.  On the one hand, Ralph Nader is making some justified attacks of the food industry, and some that were probably completely over-the-top.  On another hand, linked to the hippie movement are THE most bizarre food fads since pre-World War 1.  On yet another hand, the successful but completely manipulative method of attacking the messenger in order to taint the message was exploding, which to me is almost the most interesting part.  I had read another book that had attributed this technique to the tobacco industry and their fight to discredit all the reports that linked (quite correctly) smoking and lung cancer, but in the food wars, it seems to go back into the 1960s, and I thought the tobacco industry didn't start defending itself until the 1970s, but I could easily be wrong.  

I'm not sure what I had exactly expected to find when I started studying food history, but what I have discovered is that the history of American food is really the history of America itself.  It has everything:  racism, greed, optimism, idealism, complete quacks and loonies, patriotism, pomposity, humor, sensuality--in fact, the only thing I'd say it seems to be lacking is moderation and common sense.  No matter what time period I've studied, the wackier the claim, the more popular the diet.  The more outrageous the claim--especially if it was a claim that assigned blame for health problems to anyone BUT the individual behavior--the more likely it was to hang on even into today's climate.

This strikes a resounding note for me, because I spent three years working as the Director of the American Diabetes Association's Idaho office.  During that time, I was regularly assaulted by adherence of the Adkins diet (horrible diet in general and harmful if one has diabetes) and the Nutra-Sweet-causes-cancer brigade.  There were lots of other too, but those two were the regulars that could be counted on to badger me at every turn.  Adkins was almost always being hawked by a chiropractor who had read Adkin's book and felt qualified to dole out nutritional advice in spite of having no actual training in the subject whatsoever.  The Nutra-Sweet Brigade were 99.9999999% of the time affiliated with a "natural" nutritional substitute, and without fail their "proof" was a badly photocopied article written by an Asian doctor extolling all the studies done to prove that artificial sweeteners were almost guaranteed to cause cancer.  Now for one thing, if I am being given "facts" by someone with a financial interest in you being led to believe those facts, I am automatically highly suspicious.  For another, while I don't think artificial anything is actually good for us, there are currently almost 26 million Americans with diabetes.  You know who has been the most targeted market for artificial sweeteners ever since they came out?  People with diabetes.  Know what their increased rate of cancer is?  None.  Increased heart disease, depression, risk of death because of flu or pneumonia, and increased rates of stroke and heart attack.  26 million test subjects--I think they would have noticed an increased rate of cancer.  You can verify all this at the American Diabetes Association's website here:  http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/diabetes-statistics/

So, the more I read, the more I wonder how much we really know about food.  The easy answers are so tempting--like in a recent article in a health magazine I was reading rated products that would add fiber to your diet.  I think the selling point of the things was that they were tasteless and so you wouldn't notice them.  And, by sheer coincidence I'm sure, the top-rated products also had placed advertisements in the magazine.  Gee, I wonder if there was a connection.......and in all honesty, I'll bet not a single one of them would work nearly as well as adding a little winter squash to one's diet.  But then again, I haven't heard of a winter squash lobby that can place ads................

Leeks

Most of the food history books I've been reading over the last two years have been really interesting, but once in a while they throw out something without enough detail.  For instance, in Martin Elkort's The Secret Life of Food, I came across the information that in 640 C.E. the Welsh army pinned leeks to their clothing before battling a British King and they won, so the leeks got the credit for the victory and that leeks have been a symbol of good luck for the Welsh ever since.

Okay.  I know that at the time--and for hundreds of years afterward--victory in battle was generally attributed to anything except army size, luck or prowess.  I get that.  But why did the entire army decide to pin leeks to their clothing in the first place?  Did they have really big pins or just really small leeks?  Was the entire onion family associated with battle, or just leeks? Were they pinned there for snack purposes?  Was the opposing army also sporting vegetable matter?      

And how "urban" did the world have to be before "urban legends" surfaced?  Call me cynical, but I'm thinking this one has to be a legend or typo somewhere along the line.......

More Fun Food History

While the process for canning in cans was patented in 1810 and was in pretty widespread use by 1812, the first can opener patent in the US was not issued until 1858.  Prior to that,  it was pretty common practice to go at the things with a hammer & chisel to get them open.

I will remind myself of this next time I complain about a can not having the nifty little pull-tab to open.

A Little Food Trivia For You

In 1946, the enterprising frozen food company called "Maxson," which had been supplying complete meals to wartime fliers, began offering similar dinners to be served aboard commercial airlines.  

No wonder airplane food is so terrible.  Never believe taste tests conducted people who are being shot at while consuming the food.  It seems to skew the perspective...... 

More Food History

Looking at "American" food history--which can really only be defined as food cooked & eaten in America--a few things have struck me which might make America's food story a bit unique.  I say "might" because I can't say for sure since I haven't finished reading about our food history nor have I read about anyone else's, so these are TRULY just some thoughts I have about the things that might be unique to our food history:

*  Bounty.  One thing about America's first settlers--there was no shortage of food available if they could catch it.  Early American diets (as well as today's, probably) were incredibly meat-centric because there seemed to be no end of fresh birds, fish, and game available.  Back in Europe, the poor rarely ate meat as it was expensive or unobtainable.  Even the poorest of early settlers in America could eat meat if they could catch it, which it appears they did.  In the 1800s, diets were so lopsided toward meat & away from vegetables that Harvey Levenstein calls constipation the "national curse."

*  Sweets.  Everything I've read talks about how much Americans throughout history have liked sweets & sweetened things.  Not being much of a sweets fan, this one is out of my realm, so I thought I'd throw this one out for discussion.  Thoughts?

*  Protestantism.  Believe it or not, the sort of self-denial puritanism that pervades America's past may have had a huge impact on our food choices.  Whether believing that spicy food led to immoral behavior--or at least a lot of children--or  the Yankee ideal of plain living & high thinking that led to a reception featuring  bouillon, tea, and candy being praised for it's "simplicity" rather than its resemblance to hospital fare for one who has just had at least one vital organ removed.  William Henry Harrison's supporters actually campaigned that he lived on "raw beef and salt" and that it made him a better candidate than President Martin Van Buren who had a French chef in the White House (which may have worked as Harrison did win the election but died 32 days into his term--which doesn't speak well of that raw beef diet).  It seems that really awful food has quite often been a virtue in this country--which might explain McDonalds....

*  A very savvy food marketing industry in a young country.  We had food marketing & lots of methods of distributing information WAY before there were any limits to what sorts of claims advertisers could make, or any limits on how they could say them.  Betty Crocker informed her radio audience that Gold Medal flour made her food better, since Betty & Gold Medal Flour were owned by the same company.  Food magazine articles extolled whatever virtues their advertisers told them their products had.  Good Housekeeping even has ARTICLES--not ads--calling Jell-O an excellent and inexpensive source of nutrients.  "Experts" such as doctors, home economists or food magazine editors were hired to promote even the most revolting foods.  Remember the cookbook I found last summer which seemed to be written by a woman completely obsessed with Crisco?  Proctor & Gamble (who had introduced Crisco in 1911) hired Sarah Field Splint, editor of the food department of McCall's Magazine at the time and formerly Chief of Division of Food Conservation, U. S. Food Administration (later the FDA I believe), to write this book as well as several pamphlets, encouraging people to use Crisco in place of butter--even in sandwiches, where I'm assuming that weird white goo and its total lack of flavor might have been noticed.  I don't suppose professional pride existed if one can call oneself a "food expert" and still hawk something as tasteless as Crisco. 

* Prohibition.  I've discussed this one earlier as far as essentially killing off fine dining in America, but it seems to have given a huge boost to our consumption of ice cream, soda, and sweet cocktails (to cover up the nasty taste of illegal alcohol).  I guess if you take away one pleasure, people are going to find another.  Hm........makes me wonder what ELSE increased during Prohibition?  Birthrates?  Infidelity?  Gambling?  All of the above?????